


Vertigo

by kihophoric



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Drowning, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Hyungwon Bingo, M/M, Mermaid!Minhyuk, Near Death Experiences, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25641004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihophoric/pseuds/kihophoric
Summary: Hyungwon's fears dissolve into foam in Minhyuk's embrace.
Relationships: Chae Hyungwon/Lee Minhyuk
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Hyungwon Bingo: Round 2





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> For Hyungwon bingo's "Mermaid" square.

Water fills his throat and chokes his lungs and every time he tries, flailing and desperate, to gasp for a breath of air, he only inhales even more of it.

It's burning, the water. Salted poison pours into his mouth, up his nose, and it burns something wretched and evil, all the way down and fills his body to the brim until he feels more like the sea than himself. He sees the clear blue above one last time through stinging eyes and he pleads with the heavens to save him. They turn the other side.

Then he's falling, falling down and he doesn't even have the strength to put up a fight anymore. He reaches a depth no longer governed by the tides, and it's almost peaceful. His loose white shirt becomes transparent as it transforms into its own lifeform, breathing and billowing as it absorbs the water. He sinks and his consciousness seeps away from him. His vision's blurred. He's drowsy. Drowsy for the last time, because he's only seconds away from his permanent sleep. 

And a mass of shimmering scales swims into his view. 

And a hand reaches out to him, beckoning.

He tries to move, to take the hand. But he's become too weak. He puts all his focus into grasping that open palm.

He was close, oh, so close.

  
♒︎  
  


Hyungwon wakes up to a soft glow cascading through motel curtains. 

Someone next to him stirs. The sound of a quiet exhale, tickling his neck. Warmth on his back, rising and falling. Familiar hands that hold him in pleasant embrace, tightening around his waist. Lips leaving slow and devoted kisses across the expanse of his shoulders, achingly tender. Their legs tangling under a blanket and weaving the two bodies together into an inseparable entity. Hyungwon melts into it all.

“It was that memory again, wasn’t it,” Minhyuk murmurs.

“No,” Hyungwon lies and he shifts further back, flush up against the warm body and he thinks maybe he can be held like this forever, and maybe then the crashing waves that’s just outside in all of its ugliness won’t be able to hurt him anymore. 

It’s a nice thought. 

But it’s also selfish in a sick and twisted way and no sooner does it cross his mind that he abruptly turns, jostling Minhyuk into a mild surprise to face him. And Hyungwon thinks that Minhyuk, right then, with the iridescent glitter on his skin dancing away in the light of the dawn, is simply breathtaking. Hyungwon’s arm wraps around Minhyuk and pulls him close, a balancing act between two unspoken promises. 

Minhyuk tilts his head forward until their foreheads touch. The wavering of a faint smile betrays his guilt. He closes his eyes when he says it.

“Because of me.”

To which Hyungwon brings a hand up, tender and deliberate, fingers hardly ghosting over two parallel indentations below Minhyuk’s ear. But Minhyuk’s breath hitches and Hyungwon withdraws like he’s touched searing coal, eyes pooling in concern.

“Does it still hurt? Being away from the water?”

“No,” Minhyuk lies, and Hyungwon finds it lovely that the two share one trait, at least. It’s his most and least favorite thing about Minhyuk, the markings on his neck. They’re fading scars, shadows of the remnants of a past world, a life abandoned for a soul undeserving. A life, certainly, with more vibrance and color and beauty than the one he has now. All for what, a boy, a stranger who walks on land and breathes air and one day was foolish enough to lose his way momentarily, only for Minhyuk to lose his forever.

(Minhyuk claims it was his choice to lose. Hyungwon thinks this, too, is a nice thought.)

  
♒︎  
  


They say love wins over fear. 

But the saying only makes Hyungwon even more afraid up here, on this cliff careening out to the sea. Meanwhile, Minhyuk’s heartbeats are split into fractals. He alternates between colors, gazing out to his home with a deep wanting, a love that only competes against the one to his side. Angry foam laps at the jagged rocks down below, tempting one and taunting the other and Hyungwon just has to wonder if he’s ever loved at all, then, if he can’t let go of his pain to ease Minhyuk’s own. 

“We don’t have to do this.”

Minhyuk’s voice is clear and soothing, floating over the loud blueness in front of them. It frustrates Hyungwon. A choked sob escapes his lips and he immediately chastises himself, because Minhyuk has given him so much to live for and now he’s willing to die for it. 

But Minhyuk doesn’t have to die. Nor does Hyungwon have to fall. 

There’s a third option. It’s the one where Minhyuk jumps, alone. The one where he does, and then becomes rudderless, because he’s not physically holding onto his one lighthouse keeping him up on land. The one that, based on hearsay through ancient whispers, he returns to his origins in the seabeds, never to return to land, to his Hyungwon, ever again. It’s an option that neither speaks out loud, because the idea is utterly blasphemous. 

“Yes, we do,” Hyungwon manages to grit out.

The response brightens Minhyuk’s eyes in a way that only his eyes do, rivaling the very twinkling of sunlight refracting on the infinite waters. Smiling, Minhyuk offers a hand. Hyungwon reaches out for it and suddenly the earth and the ground are spinning and he hears a ringing in his ears and Minhyuk’s voice sounds muffled and he feels himself falling into the darkness, down, down, down.

He comes to moments before they hit the surface. He comes to and hardly notices when they are fully submerged underwater in each other’s embrace before bobbing back up again for air. He comes to and realizes he’s been a complete fool for putting this off for so long because he sees a radiant Minhyuk in his absolute element, positively soaked and awash in happiness and love and simply illuminating the water with his tender light.

And Hyungwon laughs. He laughs and Minhyuk laughs and the sounds together are a symphony to their freed souls and it just feels so _good_. 

Never once do they let go of each other. Hyungwon, especially, grips Minhyuk’s hand tightly. It’s the grip of one who has found a priceless treasure, a gem one would rather leave the world with than to part ways from. 

As for his fear, Hyungwon can let go now. 

Because it’s simply no match for the sheer joy it brings to his lover for Hyungwon to mercilessly crush. And even if the darkness becomes too much to bear, he knows it’s going to be alright. Because he will always have a safety net to catch him when he falls.


End file.
